The fourth annual DOC NYC running from November 14-21, will showcase 115 films and events, including screenings of 72 feature-length films, 39 shorts, and 20 doc-related panel discussions and master classes.
Here are four highlights from this year's gripping DOC NYC starting with Errol Morris's Opening Night Gala selection The Unknown Known profile on US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, onto Whitney Ransick's on target Misfire: The Rise And Fall Of The Shooting Gallery, through Chuck Workman's many answers to What Is Cinema?, ending with the Closing Night Gala screening of Michel Gondry's graphic Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy? An Animated Conversation With Noam Chomsky.
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| The Unknown Known: "I see the glow in your eyes," Rumsfeld comments to Errol Morris. |
Errol Morris presents former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the classic format. No illustrations illuminate us about what we don't know, or rather the unknown known which is the title of the documentary and refers to the omitted fourth option to a question from 2001 about America's worries. A vault of filing cabinets, storing decades of Rumsfeld memos, is the entryway into the maze of American politics.
"I see the glow in your eyes," Rumsfeld comments to Morris (off camera) who just asked him about his "obsession".
"I am cool," the former Secretary of Defense counters, "it's not an obsession, but a measured, nuanced approach."
Rumsfeld recounts his personal 9/11 experience, from thinking it was an accident to feeling the Pentagon shake. Rumsfeld answers politely about Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction, Richard Nixon, and his own former assistant Dick Cheney. He grins about his relationship with President Bush the elder, and while he discusses the "torture memos", a choir sings on the soundtrack.
"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence," we are reminded, and we learn how often Rumsfeld asked to consult the Pentagon Dictionary. Terminology matters, especially when "unconventional warfare" or "terrorism" are in question. Ultimately, the Unknown Known is what you don't know you know. This film is a good reminder.
Opening Night Gala - 7:00 PM, Thu. Nov. 14, 2013 - SVA Theatre; Scheduled to appear: Director Errol Morris.
Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy? An Animated Conversation With Noam Chomsky
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| Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy? An Animated Conversation With Noam Chomsky: "Children know a lot of language before they can exhibit it," Chomsky tells Michel Gondry. |
Michel Gondry ingeniously animates his conversation with Noam Chomsky, 98% through his drawings and the rest filmed with his old mechanical Bolex camera. He asks Chomsky about the first memory of his life and the answer includes a kitchen counter, oatmeal and an aunt. "Children know a lot of language before they can exhibit it," the linguist states, and says that he barely remembers high school, a dialogue accompanied by Gondry's drawing of boys riding their bikes through a forest. You should be puzzled. Isaac Newton demonstrated that there are occult forces and inherent mysteries - the world is not a machine.
Chomsky talks about his life, explains evolution and mutation while Gondry draws his own visual interpretations. It is fascinating to watch as it becomes more and more obvious that we are looking at two impressive minds at work discussing the "complex continuity", the property we impose on the world around us. Why we know that the transformed frog is still an enchanted prince, teleportation, and what needs to happen for us to no longer call a river a river - these are the questions tackled. Sometimes, the language barrier shows itself and Gondry for example misunderstands the English word "yield" as "eel", which leads to fetching fish drawings that illuminate communication splinters instead of hiding them.
Closing Night Gala - 7:00 PM, Thu. Nov. 21, 2013 - SVA Theatre; Scheduled to appear: Director Michel Gondry with Noam Chomsky.
What Is Cinema?
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| What Is Cinema?: Chuck Workman's film reveals that Abbas Kiarostami prefers "films that put you to sleep" |
Chuck Workman's What Is Cinema? is chuck full of work and endeavored responses by an exhaustive assemblage of filmmakers. Jonas Mekas compares cinema to drugs, Abbas Kiarostami prefers "films that put you to sleep," others discuss "our desire for the moments you want to go back to". In a particularly nice turn of the cinematic screw, we watch David Lynch watch Hitchcock's Vertigo, the scene in which James Stewart watches Kim Novak watching the painting of Madeleine in a museum gallery in San Francisco. "Cinema goes deep into the psyche," says Lynch, and explains the fragility of the experience that can be broken by the wrong sound, the wrong image, or the uncaring audience member in the seat next to you who has the power to break the spell.
Old interviews, new interviews, quotes and hundreds of clips from your favorite movies talk cinema without necessarily attempting to find one answer to the title's question. Ken Jacobs, Jean Vigo, Quentin Tarantino, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Altman, Michael Moore, Bill Viola and Mike Leigh give it a shot. André Bazin sums it up: cinema is showing what it is to be a human being. The quote is accompanied expertly by the shooting scene from Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game.
Special Event - 9:30 PM, Tue. Nov. 19, 2013 - IFC Center; Scheduled to appear: Director Chuck Workman.
Misfire: The Rise And Fall Of The Shooting Gallery
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| Misfire: The Rise And Fall Of The Shooting Gallery: Whitney Ransick hits his target |
Shooting Gallery co-founder Whitney Ransick opens up the books and sheds a bright light on the influential decade-long film production team which began in 1991 with great hopes and synergy, only to eventually lose its way. Who doesn't share their memories of the rise and fall, is just as telling as the ones who do attempt to put together why and how it all went wrong. The flawed egos of those involved come across clearly and the justifications after-the-fact for the monumental collapse are not better late than never in this case, as Island's Chris Blackwell's sage advice early on went unheeded. Kenneth Lonergan's You Can Count On Me winds up to be you can't count on me as Ransick hits his target.
Metropolis Competition - 7:00 PM, Sun. Nov. 17, 2013 - IFC Center; Scheduled to appear: Director Whitney Ransick.
For full details of the schedule and to book tickets, visit the official DOC NYC site.
